


Battleground

by cathtice



Series: Tales of the Sixth Age [1]
Category: Werewolf: The Apocalypse, World of Darkness (Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathtice/pseuds/cathtice
Summary: Some fights you can't win.





	

Fink said to listen to the ragged ghost of a man who's being translated for by some random scruffy guy. There's a man who shines like the sun who's doing most of the talking. He at least understands strategy, but I keep thinking he's thinking too big; too complex. All I want is a small unit I can keep tabs on and a way of co-ordinating with my people. Astrid and I know how to work together, and Alex and his templar are here. We wouldn't be that efficient together, we're told. They're the generals; so... 

_There are more of them than I dreamed. I'm not sure why I'm here, what I'm doing; I never thought... I always thought - I always hoped I could just... not show up. Just slide away, out of yet another expectation and go home to ... go home. But instead, there are slavering ranks of thousands of _things_. I hover overhead of one of the units at the back, and they laugh and jeer and jabber as they stare up at me. Well, in all probability, at my knickers, given where they are and where I am, but at least I dressed up for the occasion..._

I've got a group of knights. Actual, honest-to-goodness knights. They have swords and armour and horses and barding and lances. I've got the ability to keep up with them in a flat-out charge and better armour than any of them in my own skin. There's time for brief introductions before we move into formation; and I talk to their leader (who says to call him 'my Lord'. We have a staredown that lasts a surprisingly long time before he decides to focus instead on his standard bearer. I call him 'oy, you', and he does what I tell him to after that.), going over how his unit can move and what they can do. They're far less manouevrable than the skirmishing packs or guerillas I'm used to, but they've got more massed power. 

_I can see Jack from here - though I'm not very sure if it's him; he's spent so long being the vessel for something or someone else. I can see a few other familiar faces, but we're surrounded more than I've ever been before by people who Hunger like I do. My bones are aching with it, and I'm not sure I could leave if I tried. The fire's wreathing round me and my teeth are sharp enough to spike my tongue. The corner of me that's left sane and terrified remembers that I've never looked like this, felt like this before. The rest of me is so very, very glad..._

We know where they're coming from, and what their objective is - all they need do is get their champion to the top of the hill behind us. The sun-god starts us moving, and the heavy ranks roll out. I've had a chance, barely, to nod at the other captains, get to know their faces at least. Astrid is over there, Fink reeling that way (there's something up; he's not in combat shape, but I don't have time to find out what's wrong), Alex and his Templars over that side. Pints is mostly arguing, screaming blue murder that he should be in front, spearheading this, and he's wearing an honest-to-god _crown_. He's over-ruled by the mob; told he's too valuable to lose. I'm not in charge here, but I can't help but think it's a waste even as we roll over the dry ground downhill.

_I can see flashes of something in the sky, even in this artificial night (and I never thought of how much I'd dream of the Mediterranean sun through this darkness that's lasted for forty days) and see the yammering hordes spike their lust and rage and start to roll out. There are a few screams as some of them don't move fast enough for others' pleasure, and then I feel Them moving past me. They don't have Nazgul to ride, but even here, with my own Hunger making me cry and laugh, I'm afraid. As the magics start moving, I reach out and steal enough to keep me fed, to feel it dance. And then I remember the hit, and I want _more_._

The military's on the move - I can hear the sounds of the bombing run before I can see the troops they're engaging, and the werewolves roar their approval. Tonight, no one cares what old allegiances were; there's something out there that's more important than all of us. My Bishop and Archbishop stand here - but I'm fighting because it's the right thing to do; the right place to be. We who are strong have the right to protect the weak. I saw Brandt a few hours ago as he walked away from us, stolen by the blood of Caine; he's enslaved now by the generations of monsters we fought against. I hope he dies well.

_I don't want this. I don't want this, and still I want more. I'd fuck them where they run if it got me their souls; I'd eat and beg and slaver - but I don't need to; I'm just taking and taking at the banquet, bloating and brightening and quivering like an incarnation of desire and indulgence; hate and greed devouring me. As each of the Maeljin flick out, one by flashing one, a fragment of what they were settles deeper in me. And I don't care. I don't care. Jamie is alive; Jamie is alive and I don't care what happens to the world so long as his spirit is not destroyed; I don't care what happens to me, what I become - what I am - so long as I know, selfishly, like a greedy child keeping a stolen melting chocolate secret, that he is alive._

The outliers are spotted. Our more manouevrable units are rolled in. The forest fucks with sightlines; we're relying on the planes and the ghosts spotting for us. The werewolves have good comms, at least; we head forwards at a steady trot, ducking past the occasional explosion. Two of the knights are taken down by passing shrapnel, and I barely have time to care as I shout to make sure the unit stays steady. I don't need to worry about it; they came prepared to die to win this battle. The objectives are in sight. There's a flash of hope as their scouts go down - it looks like the other side was expecting us to miss them as they came through. The air feels fresher, almost, as the planes go for another run.

_I am hungry, but for now I've eaten enough to talk with Jack; to calm him from the manic high of a man running on death and a Plan and to make sure he's in control of the things he has left. I don't know how a battlefield works. He's throwing everything; holes and magical blasts and bolts of death and shards of asteroids. At least the redness hanging in the sky has gone; at least that isn't haunting me and making me duck every time I go outside in case it's close enough to... To something. He's pulling back what's left of the Maeljin, sweeping the troops through the gap between the hill and the water and woods. I sneak another sip, because I can't help it, as the planes flash by - something from the bad side, with monstrous wings, has engaged them, and a few go down in spirals of blackish smoke and screams._

Their artillery's going. Mostly magical; can't work out a source. No directional component. Let's get moving; keep wheeling, split up as far as we can and make sure no one gets caught. There's a glow of something landing behind the lines that's sitting there for longer than the others have. I guess it's a dud, or the magicians would have dealt with it by now. Or they're busy - either way, my knights are as eager as I am to get forward, out of the range of these things. I saw a tangle of slavering half-dog things made of muscle and bone and no skin charge a rank of tanks - and saw the tanks come out the worst of it. Saw a small pack of werewolves hammer into the side of the dogs and saw the werewolves failing. What else have they got to come?

_They're coming in ones and twos - a small troop of ghosts appeared out of nowhere and shot through a row of monsters with flailing arms and spears. It takes a couple of seconds for the rest of the army to form around them, but only the squads of vampires seem to do them any damage. Then they fade out and back to behind the vampires, but not before the no-man's land _twists_, and some things that look like once upon a time they were people step out of the warp. Then, the werewolves start vanishing as pit after pit appears out of nowhere and eats them in their hundreds._

The group they called a sentai is off separated, trying to single out Jack and kill him. A headless army is worse than useless, and they think they can deal with Jack. I know I can't, so we move ahead and pick on the forerunners. I can see the thousands of them nearly on us, and the forest offers us cover. The bits of it that haven't been scythed clean of trees, at least. I saw a troop of soldiers die a little way back, and the blob behind us is still glowing purple-black. It hurts to look at it. There's a rallying shout as something made of iron and loathing collapses into a clatter of empty, spiky armour. It almost helps when the _thing_ comes in sight.

_It's moving. He, she, it, everything. The world is moving. The world is moving and it's _eating_. I try not to double over in mid-air, as my stomach screams in _Empty_. The energy's dragging at me as I devour whatever's left of souls out of whatever's left of an army beneath me. I need. I need this so much, and I'm revolted as much as I'm starving. Then there's a wink of something in the air, over the middle of the Gaian army, and the world explodes in front of my eyes._

Half our troops are dead. The blob - the bomb - behind us; it wiped them out. It caught most of my outriders; I blocked for one of them, but the man I'd taken over from was caught - caught blocking for someone else. Instincts are the same, the world over. His eyes were empty as I stood up, looking over the blasted landscape at ground zero just in time to see Astrid. She always stood straight, always looked the world in the eye and found an answer. Now she looked me in the eye, and gave someone else an answer. She nodded, and closed her eyes for a second, and I think she smiled. Then she grew. Grew to a nine-foot, hunched crinos, lank hair half-covering her - his? - muzzle, and two bloody axes in his hands. The monster-legend's eyes opened, and Astrid wasn't there any more. We both turned, to look at the Thing in front of us, moving towards our base.

It's not even a choice, some days. 

_I want to leave. I want to go. I saw Tolly and Thad appearing out of nowhere behind Jack, and I can't think around the screaming of Want To Feed, can't think beyond 'but I like Tolly and Thad' and can't think about what to do as the warmaster is taken out of the fight messily and fast. I have time to send the two-headed crinos _thing_ acknowledgement before it - he, once upon a time - is bundled by a small troop moving fast out of the woods. Michael, I think. The heart of fear destroys what's left of a squad on his way out of the battle, and... I want to go. I want Jamie. I want to be _away_ from here, and while the Wyrm rots its way across the battlefield, the world shaking and cringing at its touch, I get some height and circle away. I'm sick, and it hurts, and I've never known I was damned so clearly._

_I think we're going to win._


End file.
